


some things never sleep

by owlvsdove



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:50:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4103241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye and Fitz notice something is going on with Jemma. </p>
<p>[SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	some things never sleep

 

“Fitz. Fitz!”

God, it’s like trying to wake a rock. Skye shoves him harder, pulling herself up against the headboard.

“ _Fitz_.”

“Mmm?”

“She’s gone again,” Skye huffs, and she can’t help but cross her arms in a way that feels like Jemma.

“Wha?”

“That’s the third time this week.”

“What are you talking about?” He mumbles, finally coming to wakefulness.

“Jemma. She left a minute ago when she thought we were asleep.”

“I _was_ asleep.”

Skye ignores him. “I just got the two of you back in the same bed, Fitz. I’m not doing this again.”                                                       

Fitz sighs, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“She probably just went to the bathroom.”

“ _So_ , let’s go check then! Just to make sure.”

Fitz sighs again. Skye takes this as acquiescence and starts to roll him out of bed.

 

 

 

They crack Skye’s bunk door open just in time to see Jemma emerging from hers across the hall, freshly dressed and with a tactical pack over her shoulder.

It looks bad.

Skye watches as Fitz’s eyelashes blink widely, finally, terribly awake at the sight. Her fingernails dig into his skin.

But they can’t assume anything. Not again.

Jemma walks purposefully down the hallway, treading lightly. When she turns a corner, Skye pushes at Fitz, thin t-shirt still warm from bed over his back, sticking close as they follow as covertly as possible. Jemma tracks through the base and down a level to the artifact storage rooms. She taps her badge against the pad next to one of the doors and is let in.

Once she’s inside, the two of them sneak up to the window at the door and peer through.

The alien monolith. Jemma’s facing it head on, like she’s bracing herself for something.

She unclasps the lock on the case door.

And it swallows her whole.

 

 

 

“No,” Fitz chokes, airless in horror. “No, no, no.”

Skye wrenches the door open and they both go spluttering into the room.

The case is still open, and the silvery-gray mass is still surging towards stillness, so they leave it a wide berth, clutching at each other as they skim the walls.

“She let it take her,” Fitz mutters, deep in an ocean of unlivable thought.

“On purpose.” Skye looks Fitz in the eye, trying to confirm that they’ve seen the same thing. But her gaze snaps back towards the monolith. Its impassiveness is hypnotizing. Its frequency feels like a warning sign.

She goes charging at it.

But Fitz won’t let go of her arm, wrapped around her like a koala clinging, terrified; and she returns like a snapped rubber band. “Skye! Skye, no. The intel said it was bad for Inhumans. It can hurt you.”

“But it can’t hurt Jemma?” She fights.

“She went into it on purpose,” he argues, although he doesn’t sound like he believes himself. “She must know what she’s doing.”

“What if she’s brainwashed? What if it’s controlling her? We have to do something, Fitz.”

“We don’t know anything yet.” He presses a hand to his face, thinking. “We need to look at the security footage.”

“You don’t believe what we saw?”

“We need to see how long it’s been going on.”

“At least three times this week,” Skye says, certain as she moves across the table to the room’s tablet, tapping on it vigorously until she gets the results she wants. Seven nights over the last two weeks the security footage has been near-seamlessly looped over.

Plus tonight.

No one who wasn’t looking closely would even notice.

Skye looks over to him, lost in uncompromising data. He matches her.

“What do we do now?” he asks.

They both watch the monolith, hoping it’ll spit her back out on request. Skye feels a sinking in her chest, and she lets it pull her over to the far wall and push her down to hug her knees. He joins her, laying his head on her shoulder.

So they’ll wait.

 

 

 

When Jemma emerges, they’re asleep.

She only stays inside until five, but it had been an early enough hour that sleep must have overtaken them while they waited. Jemma bites her lip as she drowns in sorrow.

She didn’t want them to figure it out. She wanted to be able to tell them.

She drops her pack on the ground and approaches them slowly, kneeling down to place a hand on each of them, shaking them awake.

She wants to say something but she thinks her face says it all. She’s been caught red-handed.

Her loves blink at her, sliding into focus.

Fitz seems to wake up all at once, a deep inhale in as he sits up and grabs her face, looking for signs of foreignness and fatal collision. Skye sits back. Staring.

“We followed you,” Skye says, and Jemma turns her head free of Fitz’s anxious fingers.

“I’m sorry,” Jemma says automatically. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Start talking,” Skye says coldly. “And lock the damn case. That thing freaks me out.”

Jemma sighs. “It’s meant to,” she says as she gets up to close the case. “It’s not built for Inhumans.”

“What _is_ it built for?” Fitz asks.

Jemma can’t help herself. She smiles. Just a little. Because it’s so fucking cool.

“It’s a portal. To another planet.”

 

 

 

May’s been gone for a while now, and Coulson’s busy trying to consolidate their SHIELD with the real SHIELD, so no one really notices when the three of them don’t make it to their posts that morning.

Jemma, for one, would love to go to work, but her boyfriend and girlfriend are holding her hostage.

“Will you put the ICER down please? I’m not going to leave,” Jemma gripes, rolling her eyes at Skye who’s peeking out the door. “You’re just this side of tying me to a chair and threatening my family!”

Fitz puts his head in his hands. This whole thing has Skye a little too on edge.

“Am I the only one here who’s concerned that suddenly you’re planet-hopping using some alien technology that _chose you_ as _worthy_?” Skye asks.

“Yeah, your last brush with alien technology didn’t go that well,” Fitz reminds her darkly.

“I know that! I didn’t mean for this to happen.” She crosses her arms. “But this is unreasonable and—”

“I am _not_ losing another person,” Skye bites, voice low. This is the voice she reserves for when she’s putting on a face. And it hurts. “So start talking, Jemma.”

Jemma swallows.

 

 

  

“It was a freak accident,” she starts. “Fitz, do you remember when you were trying to ask me to dinner?”

“Trying,” he scoffs. “I succeeded.”

“ _Sure_. Well, remember you leant on the case and it popped open…”

His eyes grow wide.

“And when you left, well…”

“Fuck.”

“So this is Fitz’s fault!” Skye guffaws.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he repeats, letting his head fall into his hands once more.

“It took me, then. After you left the room.”

“I’m the reason,” he breathes. “I’m the reason you’re an alien succubus.”

She gives him a look.

“That’s my current theory,” he explains.

“Well, it’s _wrong_ ,” she scourges. “I’m not a _succubus._ It just wanted me to see it.”

“Why you?” Skye asks.

And she can’t help herself again. The smallest, smuggest smile in the world graces her face, natural as day. “Why wouldn’t it want me?”

Skye rolls her eyes. “But seriously. How do you know it chose you specifically?”

Jemma bites her lip, thinking. “I don’t know exactly. I can’t explain it. Once I had made it through to the other side though, I could tell it was waiting for Fitz to leave the room.”

Skye paces, looking to the dull white ceiling. “I don’t understand. It’s been two weeks. What happened to your terrible poker face? What happened to _following the rules and doing what’s expected of you_?”

And something overtakes Jemma, something like a hammer to a windshield, cracked but intact. “I can’t be that person anymore.”

“Because of the rock,” Fitz assumes.

“Because of everything!” And she sucks in a hard breath. “Because the entire world has split open. Because _you_ almost died and _you’re_ Inhuman and Trip is dead and Ward isn’t Ward and I’m not _me_.” She’s heaving under the weight of it. There’s not a single speck of lie on her tongue. “Everything has changed. You can’t expect me to be the same!”

 

 

 

They all go quiet, hushed and red.

“This isn’t about the rock,” Skye mutters.

Jemma quakes like a woman surviving the unsurvivable. “No, I suppose it’s not,” she confirms softly, raspy and scared.

Skye sighs, nodding to herself. “We can talk about this later. I don’t know where you find the time to sleep in there.” And she says it coolly, disparagingly, like May might. And it comforts the hell out of all three of them.

But still, Skye is kicking off her boots and taking down her jeans and stripping her jacket; so Fitz follows suit. And Jemma sits numbly, unsure even now of what is supposed to happen.

They look at her expectantly, but she doesn’t move, so the two of them pull her up and start pulling at her clothes.

“What about work?” Jemma asks suddenly, kickstarted by their touch.

“ _Now_ she cares,” Fitz tsks, sounding too much like his mother as he unbuttons her pants.

“Coulson knows not to bother us,” Skye answers, leaving Jemma her t-shirt but reaching underneath to unhook her bra, sliding her fingertips across her back as it lets loose.

Jemma doesn’t fully believe this, but May’s not here and Coulson knows better than to go snooping around their bunks after that one time; so after Fitz slides into the bed, Jemma follows and lets Skye close her in on the other side.

“So you can’t escape.”

“You’re quite put out, aren’t you?” Jemma coos, and Skye pouts further.

“ _Yes._ ”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. And she pulls Fitz’s arm close around her middle, letting him be a manacle. “I’m sorry,” she tells him too. “I didn’t want to do this to you.”

He presses his lips to her neck and breathes deeply.

“We love you and we trust you and we’ll deal with this after a nap,” Skye says quietly, running cool fingers over her face to help her along. And it means so much that Jemma’s convinced by it.

Sandwiched between her loves, she drifts to another place.

 


End file.
